


Dead Palette

by hyenateeth



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Artist Grantaire, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canonical Character Death, Gen, M/M, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 20:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5262167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyenateeth/pseuds/hyenateeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A painting in 10 parts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Palette

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weisbrot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weisbrot/gifts).



> I hope you like it!

1.

Grantaire sees so many colors he can’t put to canvas.

Perhaps if he was a better artist - but he is not an artist at all, really. A failed apprentice who lives off his parents coin and various odd jobs, who spends that coin on vice, vice like drink and pigments. 

He is not an artist though - he paints prostitutes he hires off the street, paints them fully clothed, usually, though sometimes nude, but never posed. He lets them sit before him however they please and asks only that they stay still, and they are wary but do so. Some talk to him, others seem to fall asleep with their eyes open - and he knows the feeling. 

“This is all you want Monsieur?” they commonly ask them the first time he explains his desire, and their tone is biting, suspicious. Sometimes it isn’t all he wants. He always tells them it is though, and they sit for him. He never asks for more.

He paints them on small, linen canvases he makes himself, and sometimes on un-stretched linen which he can roll up and store away when it is dried. His entire room smells musty, like alcohol and oil.

He is not an artist.

Their skin has many colors in it - a rainbow, greens under the eye, blues in their veins, yellows and reds and violets - and he cannot paint them all. He cannot paint the way he sees pink in clouds or blue in the long shadows cast by street lamps, and he cannot paint the way the colors make him feel. There are so many colors in the world - and he wishes he could not see them. 

He was taught to paint a portrait of course - the simple art to it, but it never feels enough. 

2\. 

There is a structure to the value of art - histories are at the pinnacle, but Grantaire has no hand for history paintings. They are staged, calculated, allegorical. All the things he is not. He see’s no need for the pretense when the truth, in all its colors, is around them and it is cruel. The triumph of heroes and noble sacrifices - he cannot stomach that. 

Instead he paints portraits of prostitutes like they are noble and wonders what his old master would say about that. They are not genre pieces, no scenes of daily life, just portraits of these women who would never commission from him in a million years. Its all a backwards twist, really. He is paying them, commissioning their time. He doesn’t dress them up as goddesses, Greeks or Romans. He doesn’t disguise them by calling them Antigone or Cassandra, Athena or Aphrodite. They’re just as they are. 

One woman, with black hair with shades of blue, red cheeks and a green-ish complexion, asks him as she sits, “Now ain’t you got some mistress to be your muse, painter boy? Some love you could be painting? Dress her up as Venus, or whatever you artist types do?”

His hand falters when she asks. 

“Not as such, no,” he answers after a long silence. “I have a love, but one who loves me naught. I am disdained.”

The woman tuts, but says no more. Grantaire paints. 

3\. 

There are so many colors Grantaire can not put to canvas. There is red in eyelids, there is translucency in skin and teeth so white Grantaire almost fears them, because such white, he knows can be deadly like the white he mixes on his palette, and he thinks that his tongue touching them might kill him just the same as white lead. There are eyes that are blue but with light he cannot capture. There is skin, pale but full of color, and Grantaire could trace blue and green veins and orange of lamplight, rich violets in shadows - but some things cannot be captured.

So Grantaire doesn’t try. 

After all: he has no stomach for heroes or martyrs. 

4\. 

“Feuilly,” he is cajoling one day, midwinter, the back room of the Musain warmed by candles and a small fire in the corner, which a few of them, Grantaire included, are gathered around. “I should like to paint you.”

Grantaire feels cold often, unseasonably and irregularly, and when winter comes along and snow is on the ground his threadbare coat does little to keep him from shivering, so he must compensate with fire and with brandy. Feuilly and Bossuet have joined him by the fire, and the brandy has warmed him so much he has his cravat undone as he leans by the modest fire, drink in hand.

“Paint me?” laughs Feuilly, face friendly and open as always. “A bit of genre painting then? The artisan with his fans - sounds lovely.”

“Hardly,” snorts Grantaire - cause just as he has no hand for historicals, he has no hand for genre either. Over sentimental drivel, that is what it is - the upper class gawking at workers like they are in a show. Pitying or praising - its all the same. The academy ranks it above still life, but it is all the same to him. There is an honesty in an orange at least - and honesty in art is few and far between. 

“Hardly,” he repeats. “We’d give you a portrait - a classic one. You can pose and we’ll give you a little dog to represent loyalty or what ever shit - you deserve a portrait more than any noble, I figure.” 

“We can hang it here,” agrees Bossuet, merry and laughing. “Here, above the fire place!” 

He grabs Feuilly’s shoulder, almost spilling his drink as he spins the man so their backs are to the fire. 

“What say you Enjolras?” he calls across the room. “What would you like our Grand R here to paint a portrait of Feuilly, and we can hang it - Saint Feuilly, looking over the room-”

“Stop that Lesgles!” laughs Feuilly, elbowing Bossuet in the side. “Enjolras wants no part of your foolishness and neither do I!”

Enjolras, to his credit, doesn’t look annoyed, or at least as far as Grantaire can tell from across the dimly lit room. He is watching passively, Courfeyrac across the table from him, obviously chuckling behind his hand. 

For a moment, Grantaire feels that their eyes may meet - but it is probably just a trick of the light. He turns away first, laughing at Bossuet as well, letting the fire continue to warm his face and hands. 

5\. 

Winter gets colder, and Enjolras shows up on Grantaire’s street. 

“Well,” greets Grantaire when he seems him, stiff and surprised. “Are you lost, Chief?” 

He had been out to a cafe, getting a hot meal and a drink to fill his day, and since he has left the cafe it has started snowing again, and he knows he will be soaked through when he goes inside. He probably looks a mess - his wirey curls are barely controlled underneath his hat and his face unshaven, skin waxy and yellowed.

Enjolras looks- well. 

His coat looks warm, and he is wearing gloves and a hat. He rarely looks so proper in the Musain - with his cravat loose and his hair disheveled, yet in both states there is something about him, proud, fierce. 

That is the difference between them; it isn’t just how much money they spend on coats and whether they remember gloves. There is something inside them both, separating them. The external difference means little, in comparison.

“It seems I am not,” answers Enjolras, voice clear over the soft noise of the snow. “I remembered you lived around here. I came looking for you.” 

Grantaire’s stomach suddenly felt very empty. “What cause would you have to look for me, Enjolras? Surely I could not have upset you so much?” 

“No.” says Enjolras simply. “Rather, I have a request of you.”

“For me to serve the revolutionary cause? Could it have waited?”

“Not as such. It is more personal.” He shifts, glancing at the sky for a moment before steadying his gaze back on Grantaire. “Perhaps we could discuss it away from the snow.”

That part is hardly a request.

Grantaire’s small apartment is cold - he warms it with a small stove, with coal he buys from his landlady. It isn’t lit right now, and he regrets it instantly. He thought he would be keeping no company for the night, not even his usual fair of prostitutes to paint, so he had supposed only he would have to endure the cold of his room.

He certainly did not expect Enjolras to seek him - he knows Enjolras does not think much of his company, or what he can contribute, and he has certainly given him no reason to. 

“I’d offer you tea, but it would be a long wait. My brandy is more accessible, and would warm you faster I believe.”

“No thank you,” says Enjolras, curt and severe as always. Grantaire’s mouth twitches. 

“If not my hospitality, what is it you wish for? Surely you are not here for my delightful wit.”

“I am here to inquire about your paintings.” 

Grantaire suddenly felt all the colder. 

“I am not a painter.” 

“You studied under Gros. You’ve mentioned it before.” 

“Briefly, but I have also read Ovid, yet I am no god. If your memory is so good that you remember my apprenticeship, surely you also remember that I said I had no skill at it. I am no painter.”

“You offered to paint Feuilly-”

“A drunken jest. You should not take me so serious; you of all should know that I talk more than I have substance.”

“Your room smells like oils. Are you telling me if I looked around I could find no paints?” 

“How does someone such as yourself know how paints smell? Tell me Enjolras, what do I not know about how you spend your free time.” 

Enjolras gives him a steady look, obviously displeased at the attempt at to deflect. “I’m asking to survey your paintings, if you will allow me.” 

Grantaire feels a pain in his chest. He doesn’t know why Enjolras is standing in his home, snow melting on his coat so much warmer than Grantaire’s, asking to see his paintings. He wants to ask Enjolras, be accusatory and rude, but he doesn’t. Silently he goes to where he has rolled up his canvases, under his bed, and takes an armful of them to thrust at Enjolras. 

“They’re not mounted,” says Enjolras, voice colored with something like surprise.

“I have no need to keep them mounted. They are easier to store.” 

Then he walks away. He will allow Enjolras to look on his paintings, but he does not need to see his face as he observes the poorly colored drivel Grantaire wastes his time on. He busies himself instead with a drink as Enjolras sits on his bed, still in his wool coat and leather gloves and neat hat that he wore to keep him warm, unrolling canvas after canvas. 

“They are all of women,” Enjolras says after a bit of silence, seemingly undisturbed by Grantaire’s refusal to look at him. 

“Harder to find a man to pay a man to sit before me, I suppose. Men would rather pay for it, you see.

“You make no money on these?”

“I told you, I am not a painter.”

Enjolras falls back into a silence. Grantaire finds a seat in a rickety chair he owns, drinking wine, listening to the rustling of linen. 

Finally, after a long while, Enjolras seems satisfied. 

“Grantaire,” he calls out, to get his attention, and Grantaire obediently looks over, displeased to look at Enjolras on his bed, though he cannot place why. “Thank you Grantaire.”

“I would rather you explain then thank me,” Grantaire says, because he has built back up his ability to be rude in the long silence. 

“I wished to see your paintings.”

“I am sure I am not the painter of rich, revolutionary histories that you may have wished.”

Enjolras does not respond for a long while. Grantaire thinks this is, perhaps, the longest silence that has ever been between them, and though his tongue itches to fill it with his foolishness, something keeps him back. 

Then, Enjolras finally speaks again, his voice clear of uncertainty. 

“I wish to commission a portrait.”

6.

“What?”

“I wish to commission a-”

“I heard you.” Grantaire had been sipping his wine, letting it warm him, slowly, pleasantly, but now he downs it in one quick swig, thumping the cup down on the table. “Another question then - why?”

For once, Enjolras hesitated. “It is... It is a thought I had.”

“A thought? Is that all - a whim? Yes, yes of course, you are the most whimsical person I know.”

“A thought- not a whim.” Enjolras stands suddenly. He looks out of place in his room, and Grantaire finds himself wishing he would leave, despite himself. “I wish to commission a portrait - but not like the ones of my family I would see in our home. I want to see myself as a person, a citizen. I want - I want honesty, equality, do you understand?”

“I don’t,” answers Grantaire plainly. “I am a hobbyist at best. I could try and paint you in your utopia, dress you up as a hero, make something grand and meaningful but- you’ve seen what I paint.”

“I have. I don’t want that. I told you Grantaire: I want honesty. Will you take my commission or not?”

Grantaire gapes at Enjolras. He does not know what to say. Honesty he says - yet he comes to Grantaire. He comes to Grantaire at all. He is in Grantaire’s home, attempting to make honest work of Grantaire’s indulgences. 

“If you would rather not paint me, I will accept your answer,” adds Enjolras after a long moment of silence. 

“I did not say that,” snaps Grantaire, rubbing his brow, unable to keep looking at Enjolras. Then: “We would have to work out things. Size and cost and what have you and so forth.” 

He would never know what Enjolras’ face did, what his eyes looked like. He did know that there is a moment of silence after he speaks, then he says “Well... thank you. We can arrange it later.” 

“We can.”

“...Alright. Thank you. I should leave now.”

“As you wish. Do not freeze on your stroll back.”

“I shall not.” 

And then he’s gone.

7\. 

Grantaire looks at his paintings, trying to see what Enjolras saw in them. 

He can’t. The colors are bad. Too bright to be realistic, mixed oddly, brush marks too visible. 

The last one Enjolras had been looking at, which is still on the bed, only half rolled back up, is of a woman named Marguerite, who looks older than she is, with wrinkled skin and pale eyes, who smoked on Grantaire’s pipe when they took a break. The painting is unfinished, canvas showing though in places. 

It is ugly.

He can’t see what Enjolras must have seen. He burned the still lifes he did when he studied painting years ago, but he is sure if he looked back at them to compare, he has regressed. 

And yet Enjolras came to him. 

And Grantaire knows he will just disappoint him again. He doesn’t want to.

But he knows he will. 

8\. 

It isn’t until the snow begins to melt that Enjolras comes to Grantaire’s street again. They saw each other at the Musain before that, but didn’t speak about when Enjolras visited. 

They are keeping it a secret - Grantaire supposes. Good. He let Enjolras look at his paintings, but he doesn’t know if he could let anyone else do so.

So the next time they discuss the painting, snow is melting into dirty slush, and Grantaire needs his coat less, even though the coldness feels deep in his bones. This time though, when Enjolras knocks sharply, his room is warmed, and he answers the door in his shirtsleeves.

“Ah,” he says simply. “Are you to patronize me today?” 

“I have little free time,” answers Enjolras. “I am free today.”

“Sunday, of course you are. Even gods must rest.”

“Am I allowed inside?” 

“If you must.”

“What kind of portrait do you want,” asks Grantaire, pipe lit, smoke filling his room, obscuring his vision of Enjolras before him. He prefers it that way. Enjolras is hard to look at, and if he must do it for hours, he will ease himself into it. “Shall we dress you and call you Achilles, full of righteous fury? Or perhaps just in your finest clothes?”

“Nothing of the sort,” snaps Enjolras, standing before him, stiff and rigid in Grantaire’s presence. “As I said before, I want a portrait that is honest. I do not want it posed or glorified - I want you to paint me as I am.” 

“As you are, but not glorified? You ask for an impossible task.”

Enjolras’ glare darkens some. “I do not like those jokes.”

“No, of course you don’t. Have you ever sat for a portrait before?” 

“Once.”

“I am sure for someone more professional than I.”

“It was unpleasant.”

“And yet you wish to repeat it.” Grantaire sighs. “Well, this is my studio, patron. This is what I have to work with. Shall we see about getting to this honesty of yours? Sit, and I might sketch you.”

Stiffly, Enjolras sits on the same stool all Grantaire’s model’s sit. Grantaire looks at him a long moment, before shaking his head. “No.”

Enjolras ruffled. “You shall not paint me now? I-”

“Nothing of the sort. Take your coat off.” 

“I-”

“You ask for truth- in truth you are often underdressed. You sit in a back room, shirtsleeves exposed, cravat undone, committing treason. Before me you look like a proper son of a wealthy family - in the wrong setting, perhaps.” He doubts himself a moment after speaking. “If you are uncomfortable with it, perhaps not. You hardy seem comfortable at all. 

Enjolras hesitates. Then he stands and removes his coat. 

“How long will it take to sketch me?” he asks, sitting down again. 

“Not long, I imagine; we can begin painting soon. I am more Dionysian than Apollonian.”

Enjolras makes a noise like he does not know what that means, but he does not question it, and instead finds a comfortable position while Grantaire gathers his supplies. 

9\. 

It hurts to look at Enjolras’ face so long, just as he imagined it would. It’s like looking at the sun. 

There is a method - but even breaking Enjolras’ face down into shapes and shadows does nothing to ease him. 

He cannot convey what he sees onto canvas. He cannot convey the expression with which Enjolras looks at him, not when he cannot name it. He is Sisyphus, doomed to fail.

He manages an underpainting before the light goes dim. 

“I can come back next week,” says Enjolras before Grantaire can suggest a time. 

“Whenever you wish,” Grantaire says neutrally. 

The next week, the silence hangs heavier as Enjolras strips off his coat before sitting again on the stool. He mixes colors, yellow ochre and raw umber and vermillion - and he hesitates. 

He is overwhelmed. How can he ever capture the colors that dance on Enjolras’ face? The blues and greens and reds, the colors he feels like he is cursed to see. He stares at his underpainting, a sienna imprimatura, and is struck with all its flaws, basic ones in shape, the turn of Enjolras’ nose, the width of his eyes. 

“I cannot do this,” he says suddenly. 

“What is wrong now?” asks Enjolras loftily. “Is my cravat not loose enough?”

“ _I cannot do this._ I cannot paint you.” He slams his palette down, pushing up from his own chair to restlessly pace away from Enjolras, feeling suddenly like a wild animal in too small of a space.

“You said-”

“I shall compensate you for your time, if you wish, but I cannot do this. I cannot- My failures may be great and many Enjolras, but I will not let you set me for failure with this- not-not with this.”

“Grantaire, still yourself!” And then Enjolras is up, grabbing Grantaire’s arm firmly, turning him, and forcing their eyes to meet. He hates Enjolras’ eyes in that moment, but cannot break the gaze. “No one is setting you towards failure but you.”

“It is no failure to stay within my means Enjolras. I know what I am to life- and what life is to a drunk such as me. When I die my landlady will burn my paintings without even looking at them. I shall leave no legacy - I am fine with that. I prefer it.”

“You never strive for more.” It is accusatory. “You accept unhappiness because it’s all you know. You act as if you don’t matter.”

“When you die, yours will be a sacrifice. Mine will be an afterthought. No one shall mourn.” 

“You are obsessed with death.” 

“I am a realist - death is reality.” 

“You frustrate me Grantaire.”

“It is better than you pitying me, or placating me. Why do you want me to paint you Enjolras? No matter how you frame it it serves no revolutionary cause - I serve no revolutionary cause. Why do you wish to see me fail again?”

“Perhaps I had wished for you to succeed.” 

Grantaire’s chest hurts. “All the more cruel, Enjolras.” 

“You think so little of yourself, you assume I do to. I would not have asked for your talents if I had disliked your artwork. It is not placating.”

Grantaire is finding it a struggle to continue arguing with Enjolras so close. 

“I don’t understand,” he finally gets out. “I can’t see what you have seen in me.”

Enjolras’s expression, all furrowed brows and red lips pressed thin, relaxes suddenly, and he sighs. “I suppose not. But tell me Grantaire, will you paint me anyway? Will you try?”

They are very close together, had gotten that way somehow, with Enjolras holding both his sleeves. It would be easy, maybe, to take Enjolras’ hand in his, to lean forward and- 

He drops his arms, and Enjolras lets them go.

“I can try.”

10\. 

He does take Enjolras’ hands eventually. And when his landlady cleans out his apartment, she does burn his paintings, the ones he had rolled under his bed. He is mourned though, quietly, privately, by the women who used to sit for him. 

In Enjolras’ room, his landlady finds a portrait, one small and intimate, unrealistic in its colors and expressive in its brushstrokes. It shows her recently deceased tenant, coat gone, cravat loose, hair wild, an odd expression captured on his face. Longing, she thinks, but she cannot be sure. She does not give it to her tenants parents when they come, puts it away instead, because she does not understand it, but it seems too private for their eyes.

There is no signature on it, only a single letter rebus, _R_.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this isn't too disorganized. Also I'm not too great on the research (so idk why I wrote canon era) but some painting notes:  
> -"Dead Palette" is another term for a limited palette - where you only use a few colors to paint.  
> -"Dionysian vs Apollonian" refers to a conflict in the art world of whether color or line should be valued basically. This may have been more of a thing later in the 1800s but I couldn't resist the mention, for obvious reasons.  
> -Imprimatura is just a style of underpainting. It involves toning canvas then rubbing it away where you want it to be lighter.  
> -headcanon Grantaire would be more comfortable with later art movements and not the rigid structure of pre-Impressionist France tbh  
> -EDIT CAUSE I FORGOT AN IMPORTANT ONE: The hierarchy which is referred to several times is about how the French Academy ranked art by importance, the order being History (classical or religious, usually allegorical), portrait, genre (scenes of everyday life), landscape, animals, and still life being dead last. A lot of later, Modern art movements were about bucking this order.
> 
> hmu at hyenateeth.tumblr.com


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